Blach Construction’s desire to find new ways to deliver value to our clients, while also making positive contributions to construction-related technology, and our efforts to be environmentally conscious stewards of our planet formed the foundation of the drivers for this project. The three key drivers were 1) enhance construction processes by providing model-based access to all relevant project data for our onsite construction teams during the course construction, 2) create an as-built construction model that exists for the life of the facility, and 3) secure majority of our virtual design and construction efforts, as well as all of the above, accomplished by the same software package to maximize interoperability and minimize model bouncing. The main challenges faced were finding the correct software package to use as the foundation for this effort and quantifying what functionality would be of value to our clients.

The benefit to the Alum Rock Union School District is that they now have an easy to use visual tool that allows them to easily see and select an object in the model and retrieve all relevant data about that object. The object can be anything represented in the model. In the case of Mathson, the data loaded objects are typically a piece of equipment such as HVAC units, electrical switchgear or panels, or supply and return air grills or dampers. They can open a hyperlinked operation and maintenance manual, the construction submittal documents, commissioning reports, or any other document that has been linked. Their archived as-built drawings have also been hyperlinked to the model. In addition to hyperlinked documents we have set up fully customized User Defined Attribute tabs that can be populated with any information the district wants to track. At Alum Rock we are tracking specific data for HVAC systems, electrical systems, commissioning reports, etc. We have also setup very detailed tabs for doors, frames, and hardware, plumbing fixtures, etc. An essential component of this tool is the ability, through fully customizable reporting features, to easily print a report of any of this data. In addition to the features detailed above the user can see which electrical panel and circuit any piece of equipment is on and can also see all the equipment on any specific panel through custom filters we have setup the turn the equipment feed by the selected panel red. We have also setup rolling HVAC maintenance schedules that color the units in the model to provide an instant visual cue as to which units will be due for maintenance within a predefined period of time. The end result of this increased efficiency is both lower maintenance costs and increased sustainability through reduction in the districts carbon footprint.

Please forward this to colleagues who might be interested in participating in this complimentary webinar presented by FIATECH.